BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE LATE REV. DR CHALMERS. 511 



notion at all ; the effect must have arisen entu-ely from the manner. And when 

 we consider how much pleasure the printed Sermons of Dr Chalmers now afford 

 to the intelligent reader, we may easUy imagine the delight with which they must 

 have been heard, coming with all their novelty and fervour, fresh from the 

 preacher's lips. To enter into any description or analysis of compositions so well 

 known as these pubUshed Sermons, would be here quite out of place. I may per- 

 haps refer to one or two passages as specimens, and favourable illustrations of 

 his own peculiar manner. In his sermon " On Cruelty to Animals" (preached in 

 consequence of an endowment), he has occasion to shew that suffering is often in- 

 flicted on the inferior creatures by man, not for the purpose of torment, but that it 

 follows whilst he is occupied with other considerations and excitements ; and as 

 an example, to illustrate the absence of any cruel purpose for the mere infliction of 

 pain, he described in glowing colours the excitement and the interest of an English 

 hunting-field, and he terms it " this favourite pastime of joyous old England, on 

 which there sits a somewhat ancestral dignity and glory." And he described the 

 " assembled jockeyship of half a province," the assemblage " of gaUant knight- 

 hood and hearty yeomen," and he spake of " the autumnal clearness of the sky," 

 and " the high-breathed coursers," and " the echoing horn" — " the glee and fer- 

 vency of the chace," — " the deafening clamour of the hounds," and " the djdng 

 agonies of the fox," in such a strain of animation, that Lord Elcho's huntsman, 

 who was present, declared that he had difficulty in restraining himself from get- 

 ting up and giving a vue-hoUa. 



Of a far different character was the scene he drew in the conclusion of a sermon 

 preached for the benefit of a Society in aid of Orphan ChUdren of Clergymen. He 

 described the sons and daughters of a Scottish pastor obliged, at their father's death, 

 to leave the peacefulness of then- father's dweUing, and appealed to his hearers for 

 their assistance in behalf of those who were so friendless and so dependent. 

 " With quietness on all the hills, and with every field glowing in the pride and 

 luxury of vegetation, when summer was throwing its rich garment over this goodly 

 scene of magnificence and glory, they think, in the bitterness of their souls, that 

 this is the last summer which they shall ever witness smiling on that scene which 

 aU the ties of habit and affection have endeai-ed to them ; and when this thought, 

 melancholy as it is, is lost and overborne in the far darker melancholy of a father 

 torn from their embrace, and a helpless family left to find their way unprotected 

 and alone, through the lowering futurity of this earthly pilgrimage." I heard 

 that sermon, and the tears of the father and the preacher, feU like rain-drops on 

 the manuscript. 



In his Sermon on the Death of Dr Thomson, describing in a picturesque point 

 of view, the proximity of tenderness and power, of gentleness and strength, in the 

 same human character, he added this happy illustration : " This is often exem- 

 plified in those alpine wilds, where beauty may at times be seen embosomed in 



